


Icarus, I Understand

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23279482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Percival always expected Galahad would be the one to achieve the Grail. (A short musing.)
Kudos: 6





	Icarus, I Understand

There was a hope to him, as if he were a sign from the heavens themselves that what we stood for was Right, a destiny delivered to us in the form of a boy about my age.

I felt for him, truly, and held no resentment for the way his arrival usurped what I had always thought of as God's plans for me. No, it was impossible to resent him, his Goodness and Virtue eclipsing the shadows I knew followed him so closely he feared turning around, that looking directly at them would forever mar his ability to look forward.

I saw in him all I could never be: grace under fire, a fearlessness in the face of death and survival alike that was worthy of Kings and, well, servants of God's vision for humanity.

I saw in him the loss Camelot would suffer, one day, once his mortal form had fulfilled its purpose and the Heavens reclaimed him as one of their own.

And, really, he was far more on loan to us than he was one of us. 

It was no surprise, truly, as we and Bors shoved the suffering that was the Quest for the Holy Grail aside that the Pure Knight among us weathered the cold and heat and storms as if they were not there at all.

I could tell when we were getting close to the end of our journey: he became more detached from his company and more focused on the journey. He pushed himself, and us by proxy, harder and harder, only eating and drinking and sleeping when he could not put it off any longer.

The Grail's protections were even more dangerous, even more treacherous than planning a battle with a traitor on the war council, and yet he navigated them as if they were nothing, Bors riding on the tailwinds of his success, Bors making sure I was dragged along for the last leg of everything we had been striving for.

As everything I had expected, as the Angels took him Home, upward and upward and further and further out of sight, all I could think was its own type of blasphemy.

_Icarus, I understand._


End file.
